Opposition leader calls for release of Iranian political prisoners

Iranian opposition leader Zahra Rahnavard issued another
letter to Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, head of Iranian judiciary, to once more
call for the release of all political prisoners.

Zahra Rahnavard

Kaleme website reports that Rahanvard maintains that these
prisoners are neither after sediton nor a soft revolution. Instead she writes
that they are in hopes of improvement of the country's condition so that the
people of Iran can live with "pride, happiness and freedom."

Rahanvard points to the dire situation of women political prisoners in
particular and writes that the families of these prisoners are especially
strained under the pressure of their absence.

Rahnavard also called for the release of political prisoners in an earlier
letter to Ayatollah Larijani in September.

The current letter comes after a group of Iranian women lawmakers published a
letter calling for the arrest and prosecution of Rahnavard by the judiciary.

In the protests against the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the
2009 elections, numerous opposition figures and dissidents were arrested, many
of which are women.

The Iranian establishment refers to these protests as elements of a seditious
plan to topple the regime, but the opposition maintains that their protests are
constitutional and that they are faithful to the Islamic Republic system but
they allege that the provisions of the constitution have been violated in the
conduct of the last elections.

Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader who has thrown his
weight in for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in his most recent statement concerning
the opposition: "Those who are being referred to as the leaders of sedition were
pawns in the plans set up by the main schemers and the enemy had pushed them in
the middle of the arena. They should have separated their path from that of the
enemy but they did not do so and in this manner they have committed a sin."

He contended that "still the dimensions of the past year's sedition have not be
completely identified" but insisted that the true perpetrators of the election
events were after "omission of the Islamic Republic and a regime change."

Iranian authorities refer to MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi as "leaders of
the sedition" because the two presidential candidates challenged Ahamdinejad's
victory and have so far refused to walk away from their allegations.

In recent months, government supporters have been very vocal in their attacks
against the two opposition leaders and the demand for their prosecution.